1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an equipment support structure, and more particularly to an equipment support structure of the type which includes a damper spring for offsetting load applied from an equipment to a damper.
2. Description of Related Art
Generally, in equipment such as precision machinery, for example, a player for playing back a record medium or the like, it is highly desirable to minimize or substantially prevent transmission of external vibration to the equipment. For example, when a compact disc (CD) player which has been recently widely sold, has applied thereto external vibration during the playing-back of a compact. disc, a failure in reproducing a part of a signal stored on the compact disc due to skipping or the like occurs in reading-out of data. For this reason, in the installation of a compact disc player of the vehicle mounted type which is adapted to be mounted on a vehicle capable of generating vibration, equipment support structure is used which is constructed so as to support the player on a mount provided on the side of a vehicle through a damper means which exhibits vibration absorbing ability. The equipment support structure is adapted to cause the damper means to absorb vibration generated from the vehicle to prevent it from being transmitted to the player, resulting in ensuring positive playing-back of the compact disc and protection of both player and compact disc.
Also, such an equipment support structure typically includes a damper spring arranged between the equipment and the mount. The damper spring is engaged at both ends thereof with the center of gravity of the equipment and the mount, respectively, to thereby cancel load applied from the equipment to the damper means. This prevents the load of the equipment from acting directly on the damper means, to thereby prevent deformation of the damper means. Also, the damper spring serves to hold the damper means at a proper position due to its urging force, to thereby prevent the damper means from being exhausted to a degree sufficient to cause the vibration absorbing ability of the damper means to be biased.
Conventionally, as a mount through which the equipment is mounted on the vehicle or the like, an upright or vertical type mount, a horizontal type mount and the like are selectively used depending on a mounting space. Thus, the posture or position of installation or setting of the equipment depends upon the mount used. In order to cause the damper spring to cancel load of the equipment acting on the damper means, it is required to constantly vertically arrange or orientate the damper spring. Therefore, when one type mount is replaced with another type mount, it is required to vary the position of setting of the damper spring. This is generally carried out through a highly troublesome procedure of detaching the damper spring from the one mount, varying the direction of setting of the damper spring and then attaching it to the other mount.
Also, such replacement is manually carried out. However, because the damper spring must be constructed so as to exhibit an urging force sufficiently large to cancel load of the equipment, the handling of the damper spring by manual operation is very troublesome, resulting in operation efficiency being substantially deteriorated.